"Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump/The White House had canceled more than $400 million in research funding to the university, saying it had failed to protect Jewish students from harassment."

The New York Times report. That's a free-access link.

We're told: "The deal is a significant milestone in the Trump administration’s quest to bring elite universities to heel."

Not a significant milestone in the fight against anti-Semitism?

"I went to Columbia for grad school. I saw the same thing in his eyes as I saw in the eyes of all the protestors at Columbia."

WOW. INCREDIBLE RESPONSE👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

CNN Reporter: “You said you looked the shooter in the eyes can you tell us what you saw in him? “

Eye Witness: “I went to Columbia for grad school. I saw the same thing in his eyes as I saw in the eyes of all the protestors at Columbia.”

CNN… https://t.co/yxURFVj4Hr

— Jeremy Kamali (@JeremyKamali) May 23, 2025

"But they did not create this horrific shooting"/"They gave it permission. They have called for intifada revolution, which is the same thing he (the shooter) yelled last night.”

"We have now seen that the Trump administration manages the economy with the same expertise and competence it manages higher education, and as a result we might begin to rally the American people."

I'm reading "I’m a Columbia Professor. Here’s the Really Disheartening Part of This Mess," a NYT op-ed by Matthew Connelly, a Columbia history professor.

I'm all for expertise and competence, but who is this "we" threatening to "rally" us in the name of longing for expertise and competence?

Well, it doesn't say "rally us," it says "rally the American people." I used the "us" pronoun for "the American people," but that doesn't work very well with the "we" that is used twice in the quoted sentence.

Professor Connelly sees himself and his New York Times readers as the "we" who look on as Trump breaks things and hope to excite "the American people" to oppose and resist Trump. But the American people have supported Trump because the American people have seen what your "we" has done with its power when it has had the chance. "Let the Experts Handle It Again" is not a great rallying cry these days.

I'm railing about one sentence. Most of the column is about Columbia working with the Trump administration and professors at other schools boycotting Columbia. Connelly's "we" is not cohesive. It's in no position to "rally the American people." It's in what Connelly calls a "circular firing squad." And you want to be our "expertise and competence" providers?

"He was clearly eligible for naturalization. He met all the requirements for citizenship, and he had applied for it last year, and he was scheduled for an interview, and he should have been naturalized."

Said the lawyer for Mohsen Mahdawi, quoted in "Palestinian Columbia student detained by ICE at citizenship interview/Mohsen Mahdawi, who has been a green-card holder for 10 years, was detained at an ICE field center in Vermont while appearing for a naturalization test" (WaPo)(free-access link).

"The First Amendment protects speech many of us find wrongheaded or deeply offensive..."

"... including anti-Israel advocacy and even antisemitic advocacy. The government may not threaten funding cuts as a tool to pressure recipients into suppressing such viewpoints. This is especially so for universities, which should be committed to respecting free speech. At the same time, the First Amendment of course doesn’t protect antisemitic violence, true threats of violence, or certain kinds of speech that may properly be labeled 'harassment.' Title VI rightly requires universities to protect their students and other community members from such behavior. But the lines between legally unprotected harassment on the one hand and protected speech on the other are notoriously difficult to draw and are often fact-specific. In part because of that, any sanctions imposed on universities for Title VI violations must follow that statute’s well-established procedural rules, which help make clear what speech is sanctionable and what speech is constitutionally protected. Yet the administration’s March 7 cancellation of $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University did not adhere to such procedural safeguards...."

From "A Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia/Eugene Volokh, Michael C. Dorf, David Cole, and 15 other scholars/The government may not threaten funding cuts as a tool to pressure recipients into suppressing First Amendment–protected speech" (NYRB).

"The Trump administration is discussing pulling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts and grant commitments to Columbia University..."

"... as part of the government’s efforts to penalize schools it believes aren’t doing enough to combat antisemitism. The Ivy League school has come under scrutiny by the Trump administration for an alleged failure to protect Jewish students.... A person with knowledge of the discussions said the university will have a 30-day review period to address the government’s concerns and potentially reinstate the contracts.... Columbia drew especially heated criticism from some alumni for what they perceived as the university’s tepid response...."

From "Trump Administration Weighs Pulling Hundreds of Millions in Federal Funds From Columbia/Move would target the Ivy League school over allegations of antisemitism" (Wall Street Journal).

"Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, last week dropped most of the 46 cases against pro-Palestinian demonstrators charged..."

"... in the April 30 siege of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University because prosecutors had little proof that the cases would stand up at trial. There was limited video footage of what took place inside the campus building.... The protesters wore masks and covered security cameras, preventing prosecutors from identifying those who had barricaded the doors and smashed chairs, desks and windows during the 17-hour occupation.... For similar reasons, prosecutors also dismissed charges against nine of the 22 students and staff members at City College who were arrested inside a campus building and charged with burglary during a protest that took place on the same night as the arrests at Hamilton Hall."

The NYT reports.

"Representative Jerrold Nadler, also a Democrat and the longest-serving Jewish member of the House of Representatives, said he had 'the uttermost faith in D.A. Bragg.'"

AND: What deep emotions stirred within Nadler that caused him to... utter... the strange word "uttermost"? My instinct was to regard it as not a word at all, but a whiffed attempt at "utmost." But I looked it up, and it's a word. The OED has it used by Hobbes ("From the uttermost parts of the Earth") and Milton ("To the uttermost convex Of this great Round") and Shelley ("From the corners uttermost Of the bounds of English coast") and Wordsworth ("A voice of uttermost joy") and Ruskin ("To speak with uttermost truth of expression") and Carlyle ("His accounts lie all ready, correct in black-on-white to the uttermost farthing"). Yes, I can answer my question "What deep emotions...?" The answer: the urge to bullshit.

"Just as students [in 1968] could no longer tolerate the horrific images of a distant war delivered, for the first time, in almost real time by television..."

"... so many of today’s students have found the images from Gaza, now transmitted instantly onto their phones, to demand action. And just as students in ’68 insisted that their school sever ties to a government institute doing research for the war, so today’s students demand that Columbia divest from companies profiting from Israel’s invasion of Gaza.... Universities do have a serious obligation to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and to maintain order, but it is to their students and teachers that they must answer, not to Republicans eager to score points against woke 'indoctrination' at elite colleges or to megadonors seeking to push their agendas onto institutions of higher learning...."

Writes Serge Schmemann, a member of the NYT editorial board, in "Student Protest Is an Essential Part of Education" (NYT).

By the way, that headline is close to what I wrote to my parents when I participated in a student strike at the University of Michigan, circa 1970. I am in possession of this letter, and I can only imagine what my parents must have thought. I went so far as to assert that the protesting was more educational than the classes themselves. And it's not as though they'd asked for an explanation. I took it upon myself to pontificate. The issue at the time was affirmative action. The chant was: "Open it up or shut it down." What did I know about the wisdom of a program of affirmative action? It seemed vivifyingly clear at the time.

The NYT looks into the "outside agitator" rhetoric.

Yesterday, I noted the NYPD report that "More than a quarter of protesters arrested Tuesday at Columbia and 60 percent at the City College of New York had no connections to the schools." I asked: "But who are the outside agitators? If they are not students, who are they? How about some details? Lots of them were arrested. Why isn't there a torrent of detail about what sort of people they are?"

This morning I see the NYT doing something that seems to be answering my question. The headline is "The Mayor Called Them Outside Agitators. Many of Them Beg to Differ. City officials have blamed 'external actors' for escalating demonstrations at Columbia University and elsewhere, but student protesters reject the claim."

This article set off my bullshit detector:

1. I want to know who the non-students actually are, not — as the headline has it — that they "beg to differ" and "reject the claim." Of course, they wouldn't like their antagonists' effective rhetoric.

2. The article has 5 authors.

3. The article begins with 3 paragraphs cherry-picking 3 particularly nice non-students — a saxophonist, and gardener, and a nanny!

But let's look at the substance:

"Despite a violent clash with police in Madison on Wednesday, pro-Palestinian encampments continued Thursday..."

"... at both the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at UW-Milwaukee.... Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have vowed to remain for as long as it takes until schools meet their demands. University leaders are balancing students’ right to protest with a desire to minimize disruptions to their campuses and enforce a state rule banning encampments."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Here's the statement put out yesterday by the UW-Madison chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin. It's painstakingly balanced. Excerpt:

The false narrative.

"interviewer asks Columbia student to comment on the forcible takeover of the university building & the young woman says, 'I think it's a false narrative.' he asks her to comment on custodial staff being held captive by the occupiers of Hamilton Hall & she says, 'I think that's a false narrative.' He asks her if she is saying that the custodian is lying & she says, 'I think that's a false narrative.' He asks about Oct. 7 & she says, 'Get out of my face' & walks away."

Tweets Joyce Carol Oates.

At some point, you've got to be able to articulate what you think is true. Otherwise, you're trying to beat something with nothing. But you can always walk away.

ADDED: If the students of today don't know how to think about and articulate what they feel is wrong, the teachers and the parents bear responsibility. Young people feel that something is terribly wrong — to the point where they feel called to act out — and they're not accepting the pushback that says you are anti-Semitic if you don't support whatever Israel decides to do. 

The anti-Israel protesters are finding themselves on the receiving end of the cancel culture methodology they know how to wield. They know how to call you "racist" if you oppose affirmative action or say "All lives matter." They know how to call you "transphobic" is you're horrified by puberty blockers and "sexist" if you question abortion on demand. They've seen how that has worked to control speech and to control minds, and good for them if they decline to take what they've dished out.

Yes, the hypocrisy is glaring and the chaos is painful. And I'm not expressing optimism. I'm just saying I can see an opportunity to move to a higher ground. 

AND: Here's the interview.

"He... compared Zionists to white supremacists and Nazis. 'These are all the same people' he said."

"'The existence of them and the projects they have built, i.e. Israel, it’s all antithetical to peace. It’s all antithetical to peace. And so, yes, I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for those people to die.' And, Mr. James said, 'Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.'..."

From "Columbia Bars Student Protester Who Said ‘Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live'/After video surfaced on social media, the student, Khymani James, said on Friday that his comments were wrong" (NYT).

"[I]n an interview earlier in the week, Mr. James drew a distinction between the ideas of anti-Zionism, which describes opposition to the Jewish state of Israel, and antisemitism. 'There is a difference,' he said. 'We’ve always had Jewish people as part of our community where they have expressed themselves, they feel safe, and they feel loved. And we want all people to feel safe in this encampment. We are a multiracial, multigenerational group of people.'"

"What I do know is that even the most peaceful of protests would be treated as outrages if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black..."

"... even if the message were coded, as in a bunch of people quietly holding up MAGA signs or wearing T-shirts saying 'All Lives Matter.' And besides, calling all this peaceful stretches the use of the word rather implausibly. It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Arab-Israeli activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying Hamas as heroes. The other night I watched a dad coming from the protest with his little girl, giving a good hard few final snaps on the drum he was carrying, nodding at her in crisp salute, percussing his perspective into her little mind. This is not peaceful..."

Writes John McWhorter, in "I’m a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice" (NYT).

"It’s clear to me that [university authorities] haven’t transgressed here. You can debate who you ought to be sympathetic with..."

"... but in my own mind, I am confident that the students have no First Amendment claim to stay in that space."

Said Columbia lawprof Vincent A. Blasi, "who has spent decades studying civil liberties issues, said the university had articulated a 'reasonable' policy to govern protests and had every right to punish students who violate it," quoted in "Faculty Group at Columbia Says It Has ‘Lost Confidence’ in the President/The campus chapter of a faculty organization said it would 'fight to reclaim our university.' Students were undeterred by the crackdown on their protest" (NYT).

Of course, the university doesn't have to do everything within its power.

"Since Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016, many campuses have become especially volatile places, seeing an increase..."

"... in angry demonstrations over conservative speakers, some of whom have been disinvited out of fear for their safety. The Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel has sparked another wave of protests.... In interviews, they described encountering students who were unwilling to engage with administrators when invited to do so, quick to use aggressive and sometimes physical forms of expression, and often wore masks to conceal their identities..... 'When I talk to my fellow university presidents, everybody has the same experience,' said Daniel Diermeier, the chancellor of Vanderbilt.... 'They’re not interested in dialogue. When they are invited for dialogue, they do not participate,' Dr. Diermeier said. 'They’re interested in protesting, disruption. That’s different... This has nothing to do with free speech. That’s a red herring'...."

From "Colleges Warn Student Demonstrators: Enough/After years of tolerating unruly protests, some schools are starting to suspend and expel students, raising questions about where they should draw the line" (NYT).

Meanwhile: "Live Updates: Police Arresting Pro-Palestinian Protesters at Columbia/Officers began arresting students on Thursday, a day after university officials testified about antisemitism before Congress" (NYT)("The arrests, which drew a new crowd of students to support the protesters, came the day after university leaders pledged to Congress that they would crack down on unauthorized student protests tied to the war in Gaza").

The chair of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry was suspended for tweeting "Whether a work of art or freak of nature she’s a beautiful sight to behold."

The NYT reports, on the plight of Jeffrey Lieberman, one of the most prominent psychiatrists in the country.

He was commenting on this tweet:

It is not a work of art made of black stone or granite. She is Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. The most beautiful among the black beauties. She is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the darkest skin ever seen on earth. She is also known as the QUEEN OF DARK. pic.twitter.com/gbyoNizcEJ

— Mynameis...Miro (@zg4ever) February 17, 2022

He was suspended even though he apologized, called his tweet "racist and sexist," and said he was “deeply ashamed” of his “prejudices and stereotypical assumptions." He even said:

“An apology from me to the Black community, to women, and to all of you is not enough. I’ve hurt many, and I am beginning to understand the work ahead to make needed personal changes and over time to regain your trust.” 

The basis for the outrage seems to have to do with displaying idea that it's amazing that a person could be very dark. It seems obvious that he thought that because he was giving a compliment, that it was uplifting to stress the model's darkness (which she herself and the photographer are stressing). But he's essentially saying that he loves how weird it is, and that's alienating and otherizing. 

But it is very hard to think about the problem apart from the harshness of the punishment. That's almost completely distracting. The lesson taught is nothing sophisticated about cross-racial understanding, but something closer to: never never never comment on anyone's skin color.

"The Columbia University Marching Band announced Saturday it would dissolve due to intrinsic, irreparable damage caused by the club’s structure, which was 'founded on the basis of racism' and 'cultural oppression.'"

The Daily Caller reports.

Following a Sept. 12 meeting to discuss anonymous postings that alleged the band’s involvement in sexual misconduct, assault and racism, among other things, the band “unanimously and enthusiastically decided to dissolve” after 116 years of performance, according to the band’s statement Monday.

“The Columbia University Marching Band apologizes for insult and injury victims have experienced as a result of actions perpetrated in its name,” the statement continues. “The Band has maintained a club structure founded on the basis of racism, cultural oppression, misogyny, and sexual harassment.”

Despite reform efforts, the band found it “impossible to reform an organization so grounded in prejudiced culture and traditions.”

"Columbia University denounces student filmed harassing black students in 'racially charged' rant."

Yahoo News reports.

Video at the link, obviously taken out of context. I don't know what cranked this guy up to the level that's caught on video, the climax of which is: "White people are the best thing that ever happened to the world. We are so amazing. I love myself, and I love white people. Fuck you, white people! Fuck you, white men! White men! We did everything! I don’t hate other people, I just love my white men. I love white men!"

The inconsistent lines — "Fuck you, white people! Fuck you, white men!" — would support the theory that the rest of it is sarcastic. I don't know. Maybe when he says that he's switching to saying what he imagines the black students would say to him (or what they did say to him). I don't like video that begins in the middle of things, especially when it is offered for the destruction of a young person. [ADDED: I've listened to this way too many times, but a commenter is saying it's not "Fuck you," but "Fuck yeah." That would make more sense, but after multiple re-listens, I don't know for sure. And I think "Fuck yeah" could be heard as sarcastic too.]

I'll embed the video:

Disappointed, but not surprised. Twitter, do your thing@Columbia @CC_Columbia #ColumbiaWhiteExcellence pic.twitter.com/UCcyv4aII5

— Aala (@aalanasir) December 9, 2018

"Sulkowicz wants to change behavior, too, but thinks that punishment is more efficacious than tweaks to campus life."

"When Columbia settled the lawsuit filed by the man Sulkowicz accused of rape, it put out a statement, noting that his 'remaining time at Columbia became very difficult for him and not what Columbia would want any of its students to experience.' But Sulkowicz believes that what he went through had a salutary effect. 'He’s been scared shitless,' they said.*... 'It’s about finding a way to make your institution, and the people who run it, more human.'"

From "Is There a Smarter Way to Think About Sexual Assault on Campus?/A team of researchers at Columbia believes that small changes to college life could make campuses safer" by Jia Tolentino in The New Yorker.

I'm interested in the enthusiasm for harsh punishment and for deterring bad behavior by scaring people shitless. That's the common stereotype of a right-wing mindset. Most of that New Yorker article is about understanding the behavior of college students and tracking them away from bad sex, that is, looking for root causes, which is the classic mindset of the liberal. Torentino asked Sulkowicz about that approach (which led to a program at Columbia called "SHIFT"):

Sulkowicz had not heard about SHIFT before, and was politely resistant to the idea: “My view in this whole thing is that, the more that Columbia can retreat behind ‘Here’s a program, here’s a study, here’s a process,’ the less that any human that finds themselves in this machine will ever be incentivized to act based on their moral compass.”

What if, I asked, the idea behind the study was tinkering with the machine, figuring out how to reorient that moral compass?

“That makes me think of asking someone to wash the dishes, and they tell you, ‘I’ll try,’” Sulkowicz said. “I think that’s the difference between spending two million dollars to try to understand the conditions that create a community that’s conducive to sexual assault versus just doing the right thing—expelling people who sexually assault other students.”

 That's an attitude I've always heard called right-wing.**
_________________

* I was confused at "they said," even though I'd read, earlier in the article (and had not forgotten) that Sulkowicz "identifies as non-binary, and uses the gender-neutral pronouns 'they' and 'them,'" and I had already struggled with confusion when I read "in the midst of sex, the student anally penetrated and choked them while they struggled and told him to stop" and "carrying a fifty-pound, twin XL mattress around campus... was a performance project: they would stop carrying it, they said, when the student who had raped them was expelled."

** The new thing is to care passionately and be right-wing.

"Columbia is now a safer institution because of Jane Doe’s courage. Jane Doe can proceed in life knowing she made a material difference..."

"... in one of the premier institutions of higher education and meaningfully participated in a cultural moment of significance for all Americans."

Said the lawyer for a woman who sued Columbia University and a professor. There is now a settlement of the case, the NYT reports in "Columbia Professor Retires in Settlement of Sexual Harassment Lawsuit." Notice the highlighting of the claim against the professor.

[A]n anonymous graduate student filed a lawsuit against [Dr. William V. Harris, a renowned Greco-Roman historian and longtime professor at Columbia University,] alleging that he had kissed and groped her repeatedly while he was her academic mentor, and then disparaged her to colleagues when she rebuffed his advances. 

But I'm more interested in the claim against the university "for what she called its 'deliberate indifference' to her complaints about him." The professor is gone now. Columbia University remains. It's relatively easy to de-activate the individual predator, but the institution lives on, replacing the de-activated predator with new potential predators, and what has changed? What was even wrong in the first place?

Professor Harris is 79 years old. Who knows what he's admitted he did and whether he considers it wrong? Moving him into retirement isn't much of a change, but enough was done to appease "Jane Doe," apparently. And the NYT presents the case in terms of the old man's retirement. But if you read to the end, you can see some coverage of the dissatisfaction among graduate students. One student observes that retirement isn't much of a consequence for Harris — "He shouldn’t get to retire... He should be fired." And:

"[I]t’s not enough and it certainly doesn’t change the culture that allowed him to thrive and continue to abuse his graduate students over the course of decades... There is a fervent desire to view this as an isolated instance rather than symptomatic of a culture that deprecates women and doesn’t take the concerns seriously.”

I absolutely agree with that. What has Columbia changed about itself? From an earlier NYT article about this lawsuit:

Columbia’s handling of sexual misconduct accusations has come under fire before, most prominently after an undergraduate student carried a mattress around campus for a year in protest after the university cleared a man she said had raped her. In July, Columbia settled a lawsuit that the man, Paul Nungesser, had filed over the university’s treatment of him; Columbia said it would review its policies.

It's not easy to figure out what the policies should be, as the case of the 2 students —  Paul Nungesser and Emma Sulkowicz — showed. You can't just pick a side and lean heavily in that direction. The answer should have something to do with paying attention to the evidence and figuring out a fair resolution. But what happened in one particular student interaction is a very different problem from a professor who goes on for years and years exerting power over students. I'd like to see a lot more from Columbia than that it's reviewing its policies.